


Little Whispers

by greenkangaroo



Category: Naruto
Genre: Aging, F/M, Gen, M/M, Teaching, inferred relationships, passing on techniques
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-09 14:55:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18640396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenkangaroo/pseuds/greenkangaroo
Summary: "The world is not moved by one large shout, but a thousand little whispers."Akimichi Chouza is old and his fighting days are done, but he has one more trick to teach up his sleeve.





	Little Whispers

Naruto isn’t sure what to make of it when he gets an invitation to tea from Akimichi Chouza. 

“Hasn’t your dad been retired for, like, years?” He asks Chouji after a Clan Council meeting. 

“It’s been two years, Naruto. That hardly counts.” 

“I know, but why would he want to speak to me?” 

Chouji shrugs in a way that tells Naruto he knows exactly why his father wants to see his friend. 

Naruto huffs. “Fine, keep your secrets.” 

Chouji grins. “Thanks. I will.” 

 

-

 

The Akimichi compound is one of the oldest and biggest in Konoha. It has survived the Sound invasion, Pein’s attack, and the Fourth Shinobi World War intact. Naruto knows its red boundary wall well, because the Autumn Road that uses it as a backdrop is where all the good food carts are.

Yet despite his years of friendship with first the heir then the Sixteenth Clan Head, Naruto has rarely spent time inside. 

This occurs to him just as the great doors close behind him and he’s faced with a gravel path that twists off in at least seven directions. 

He picks the one that leads to the biggest house in front of him and walks. 

The air is warm and quiet save for sudden bursts of activity as he comes closer to buildings- mostly the sounds of a busy kitchen. There are many in the Akimichi compound. Once he hears the clang of metalsmiths near the clan’s workshop where the sizeshifting armor they wear is made. Mostly it’s peace and the soft sound of wind through the trees, flowers, and gardens. 

There are many gardens. 

 

-

 

Chouza is a relic of a bygone era, and he knows it. 

He’s not the oldest ninja in Konoha by far, but he is the oldest in any position of power. Yes, he’d retired in favor of his son, but one would have to be an idiot to assume that he was a toothless tiger. Even now with his great red head of hair finally going white and the wrinkles catching up to him, Chouza could never be called toothless. 

“Naruto,” he greets with genuine warmth. “Although it will be Hokage soon, won’t it?” 

“Too soon,” Naruto admits. Not something he’d say to many people and Chouza laughs a deep laugh of understanding. “Paperwork?” The retired Patriarch asks. 

“Paperwork,” Naruto agrees. 

 

-

 

Chouza leads Naruto through the house. Like the rest of the compound it is big and old and peaceful, first era architecture that with the help of the First Hokage’s robust chakra had survived everything thrown at it. A little like the clan it fosters. 

Naruto expected a study or a library or even a small tea room but instead he is led down a hallway that terminates in a single door in front and two sliding doors to the side. 

Chouza leads him out these sliding doors into a small, clearly personal garden. 

There’s a wisteria tree growing against the lattice wall, and rocks grouped here and there in strange patterns. 

There is also a table, cushions, and a tea service. 

“Huh,” Naruto says and Chouza smiles. 

“Rule number one,” he says as he settles, gestures for Naruto to settle. “You must always have a place of your own.” 

 

-

 

Tea is quiet and Naruto finds he enjoys that. He doesn’t need to fill the air of the small garden with chatter. No one is asking him questions and giving Kakashi double-checking glances. No one needs any signatures right now, please, in triplicate. 

It’s so pleasant that it takes Naruto a moment to realize he’s hearing things. 

Softly, rushing by his ears. A snippet of conversation. 

“-and then Miki said she didn’t take my extra kunai but she KNOWS I wrap my kunai with orange threads so I can FIND the damn things again-"

As quickly as it is there, it’s gone. 

Naruto dismisses it. Then, as he picks up a rice cake flavored with strawberry..

“-it’s no good. I can’t get this damn bush to produce a single bud and if it doesn’t start producing soon we’re gonna lose the opportunity to harvest the beetles. Shibi will be furious.” 

“Shibi? what about Shino?” 

Again. Gone. 

Naruto puts his half-eaten rice cake down and looks up at Chouza. 

The leonine old Clan Head is watching him over the edge of his jade green teacup with a cat's secret smile and it doesn't look an inch out of place. 

 

-

 

Tea is cleared away by Chouza himself, no servants in his garden. 

“Relax,” he orders and Naruto does. 

“Hands open.” 

They open. 

“Listen to the wind,” Chouza says quietly. “As though it is pooling in your fingers and flowing away. You don’t need to make it a weapon. It isn’t a weapon. It’s a friend come to visit, to tell you interesting things.” 

It’s hard. Naruto’s chakra jumps at his open palms, at the feel of rushing air. A clone, that’s all he needs, and a rasenshuriken is right there, ripe for the creating and throwing. 

“We’ll try again next week,” Chouza tells him. “You did very well.” 

Naruto thanks him for the tea and leaves, still uncertain of what exactly is happening. 

 

-

 

Naruto doesn’t mention the strange lesson to Kakashi or Shikamaru or anyone, not even Chouji. He returns at the same time the next week. There is a different tea- a white berry tea- and again, he tries to let the wind flow through his fingers. 

 

He fails. 

 

-

 

The third visit's tea is a fine green and Naruto is just about ready to give up when- 

“I know we can manage the funding, Ino. If we can just word this well enough-"

“It’s not just the funding, Sakura, it’s everyone who is going to push against it. No one’s going to like spending military funding on civilian care.”

“Those are our civilians! They’re the backbone of our village!” 

“I know that, you know that, even the Jounin and the Clan Councils know that but the Elder Council-"

Naruto snaps out of it, fists clenched, ready to come to her aid but she isn’t there. Chouza is.

He puts his jade green cup down. 

"The world is not moved by one large shout," he says to the future Hokage, "but a thousand little whispers." 

 

-

 

Naruto thinks about that. 

He doesn’t go to tea the next week. Instead he finds his new favorite spot on the monument, the top of Kakashi-sensei’s head. 

(It used to be the top of the Fourth’s, but. But.) 

The wind is stronger up here than it is in Chouza’s garden and without Naruto's bidding it begins to talk. It carries snippets of conversation from all over Konoha, flowing through cracks in windows and open doors, down well travelled paths and training grounds. The open air of the front gate, the courtyard of the Hokage Tower, the Academy’s playground. 

Thousands of hopes and fears and arguments all swirl around Naruto’s head each wanting to be the first to be heard.

It’s overwhelming. 

The hands that close over his ears are not his own. Naruto reaches up like a child would and he holds those heavy calloused hands right where they are until he can breathe again. 

Chouza might be elderly now but he sits with ease beside the younger man. He looks out over Konoha with a fond and tired gaze, 

“When I was a child, I was so in tune with my chakra nature that I heard them night and day,” Chouza says. 

Naruto is quiet. 

“I grew paranoid and angry. One day I lost my temper and created a cyclone. It tore down a quarter of our fruit orchard.”

Chouza points to a far corner, where many different clans cultivate edibles for the village. 

“It wasn’t a devastating loss,” Chouza says, “but it was one. So I stopped listening.” 

A pause.

“And that was just as bad.” 

 

-

 

Chouza can’t hear everything.

A good closed door will prevent his snooping. A seal against words escaping will override an open window. 

“This is how you know everything,” Naruto says because it’s true Chouza has always seemed to know. He knows when someone is having a bad day, when a surprise party needs a bit of propping up. He knows who broke up with who, who is angry at their father, who wishes they had brought their mother flowers. 

He is intimately familiar with all of Kakashi’s old sorrows, spoken to a name on a stone. 

“Not everything.” Chouza tells him. 

 

-

 

Naruto returns to tea, and Chouza warns him.

Sometimes, what you hear needs context. Sometimes, context doesn’t help. Sometimes you’re wrong. 

Being wrong can be catastrophic. 

“I heard the cloud ninja that tried to kidnap Hinata,” Chouza tells Naruto, “when you were all very small. I didn’t recognize it for what it was fast enough, and Hiashi had to see his brother die.” 

There are many of these sorrows but Chouza will not share them.

“You only need to learn from the lesson, not the examples,” Chouza tells him. “I am old and good or ill, I’ve heard what I’ve heard.” 

Naruto isn’t certain he agrees, but then Chouza has lived a longer life than he has. 

 

-

 

This tea is red, and served with milk. 

“It was your father’s favorite,” Chouza tells him. The words are heavy with a quagmire of emotion.

“What did he like to eat?” Naruto asks, because there are things you just don’t get to ask your resurrected father while he tries to fight a Goddess to save the world. 

They talk. About Naruto's parents. Their favored food, music. Where Minato had taken Kushina on their first date. How much spicy ramen Kushina had eaten when she was pregnant.

“Did you know?” Naruto asks and Chouza answers, “Yes.” 

 

-

 

When Naruto says to Aburame Hatsuko, “Good luck with your bush!” he finds the look of bewilderment to be like a shot of adrenaline and thinks to himself, no wonder. 

 

-

 

The room at the end of the hallway is a calligraphy studio, and it has a side door that leads out into the garden.

When Naruto comes for tea, Chouza is closing the door. He sees Naruto, hesitates, then leaves it open. 

Naruto can see the shrine there, freshly cleaned, with pictures of people he knows and people he doesn’t. His father, his mother. A man who must be Sasuke’s dad, for how he scowls. A picture of Hiashi, but Hiashi does not wear a white headband. 

“They keep me humble,” Chouza tells him.

Naruto wonders who he will put at his shrine. 

 

-

 

There’s no good place for a garden and studio in Naruto’s apartment and besides it's getting harder to be there by the day, people who think they know him and people who used to coming by day and night to ask a question or for a favor, for confirmation or absolution.

The Uchiha compound has plenty of spaces and there's only one other person to worry about. Naruto is used to bothering him. Sasuke doesn't seem too annoyed at the prospect of him moving in, either. 

Naruto looks for a quiet room and finds it, with a good big window that lets in light and air. 

“What do you want it for?” Sasuke asks him.

“A really smart guy told me I need a place to just be,” Naruto tells him. 

"And this is it?"

"Yeah, I think so." 

Sasuke doesn't call him an idiot for it which is nice. 

Naruto finds out later that the room he chose was once Fugaku’s study. Sasuke isn’t bothered so Naruto doesn’t bother to be. 

When he opens the window for the first time he hears Inuzuka Hana’s hunting song as she leads her dogs in their daily run up the monument. 

He grins and starts dusting. 

 

-

 

“Sometimes,” Chouza tells him, “Changing things too fast is worse than not changing them at all.” 

“But if they’re left unchanged, they ruin lives,” Naruto challenges. 

“You’re right,” Chouza agrees, “but force breeds resentment, a kind that roots deep.”

“I’m not good at being subtle,” Naruto tells him. 

Chouza smiles. His eyes have looked more tired of late. “That’s okay,” he tells Naruto.”Chouji is.” 

 

-

 

Naruto invites Chouza to tea at the as yet unofficial Uzumaki-Uchiha compound. 

Sasuke bows out. He doesn’t like how knowing Chouza’s looks are, how easily such a big man fits into such a small space. He’s just as uneasy around Chouji, but Chouji is worse because Chouji is kind. 

Naruto lets him with a promise to ‘be back in time for dinner, asshole!’

Chouza doesn’t mention the writing room once being Fugaku’s which Naruto appreciates. 

“It’s good to get fresh air.” He says. 

Naruto agrees. 

 

-

 

They sometimes discuss the technicals of what they are doing. 

It is a jutsu, though one reliant on natural currents to be any sort of use. A summoned wind is too obvious and tastes artificial to those who know. 

“In Hidden Sand,” Chouza says to Naruto, “they’ve made this an art. Temari is quite versed in it.” 

They talk about the virtues and pitfalls of sealed wind, little buffets of air that could be laid with paper tags to carry intimate conversations. 

Chouza admits that fuinjutsu is not his strong point, but Naruto has ideas. 

"Now wouldn’t that be something to see,” Chouza tells him. 

 

-

 

Chouza does not live to see it. 

He lives long enough to see Naruto made Hokage, four years later. Long enough to meet his first grandchild with her soft pink hair and big Akimichi grin. He lives long enough to be offered, if grudgingly, a seat on the Elder Council and long enough to laugh the offer out of his study. 

Akimichi Chouza, relic of a time gone by, dies peacefully in his sleep. For him there will be no more wars. 

 

-

 

The funeral is quiet but large. 

There are nin from Sand, Stone, Cloud, Water, a smattering of the smaller villages. There are dignitaries from governments all the way to the Land of Swamps. There are prostitutes and gamblers and thieves and smugglers, merchants and scholars and one quiet tea salesman. 

There is Chouji, tall and proud, the spirals on his cheeks finally gone blue. 

The Fifteenth is dead. Long live the Sixteenth. 

Naruto listens to the stories as a breeze wends through the crowd. He watches Chouji take a small portion of his father’s ashes for the private Akimichi cemetery, which is too large. He brings them to his mother who does her best to smile. 

 

-

 

The party that night will spill out of the Akimichi compound, enveloping the Autumn road and nearly every other street besides. No one will recall the exact amount of alcohol consumed or food eaten. As the night goes on the stories will become more and more outlandish until no one's really certain if they're telling the truth one way or another. 

More than one person heading home that night will see or think they see a man unbowed by age, hair as red as the day he first took his clan oath.

They will see or think they see him pass through Konoha's gates, opening his arms for two waiting teammates. 

They will forget, as the living do. 

That is how it should be. 

 

-

 

Naruto sits in his writing room, working. 

The summer air flows in to rush across his face and then back out. He can hear children playing, Genma muttering about gate duty, Lee encouraging his genin students to truly feel the springtime of their youth as they strive to beat their previous package delivery times. 

A thread of conversation wreaths about his head. 

“-the Hokage will never approve.” 

“He doesn’t need to approve what he doesn’t know about.”

“This is borderline treason.” 

“If I didn’t think this was necessary, Tomoe, I wouldn’t ask you to do it.” 

“There has to be a better way, Keisuke.” 

Naruto opens his eyes and settles them on a jade green teacup across the room, part of a set. 

A gift, for the Seventh Hokage. 

He makes a small note in shorthand and calls out, “Shikamaru?” 

“Whaaaattt?” the word is rough and fuzzy. Shikamaru stumbles in from the next room over, rubbing his eyes. 

Naruto grins. “So you _were_ asleep.”

“You decide to work from home and ask me to stick around ‘in case you have an idea’ and you expected me to not sleep?” 

“I had one. Could you send a message to Yuuhi Keisuke, please?”

“what am I your secretary?”

“When I’m here you are.” 

“Fuck you, Lord Hokage, sir,” Shikamaru says, but he’s already headed for the extra paper. “What should we tell him?”

“Just that I want to talk.” 

“Ominous. I like it.” Shikamaru says. 

“I try.” Naruto says. 

 

-

 

The shrine in the corner of Naruto’s writing room isn’t as big as Chouza’s was, but some of the pictures are familiar. 

His parents, the Third. What images he could gather of the lost jinchuriki. Chiyo of Red Sands. Neji. 

Chouza, drinking tea, his red hair finally frosting white.

**Author's Note:**

> Chouza's chakra nature is not explored in Naruto canon, and only one filler episode has informed this concept of his nature being wind-based. 
> 
> The idea that chakra natures allow the raw manipulation of their corresponding elements is likewise not something explicitly stated or explored in Naruto canon. A chakra nature means that jutsus of that type come more easily to a nin with a shared nature. I figured that was kind of lame.


End file.
